My purpose is studying the extraction of visually presented information into perception and understanding, as a prototype of reading. My approach stresses an information processing analysis, treating reading as a microgenetic process consisting of a number of stages, from retinal stimulation of the optic pattern, extraction of simple visual features which are briefly stored, organization of meaningful forms and symbols from those features, and storage of these representations as short- and long-term memory. The specific aims are to investigate the properties of each of these stages of processes, as they are important in reading as a performance skill, or in its acquisition. This will include studies using patterned adaptation fields of selected spatial frequencies to attenuate specific visual feature detectors so as to discover the amount of information preserved from briefly presented stimuli, such as would be seen during a single fixation in reading; studies on the rate of scanning of the visual features, in which the processing time to extract information will be controlled by visual noise or another fixation coming afterwards; studies on the role of the size and constraints of the context of material when extracting information during reading; and studies on the role of peripheral cues in guiding fixation choices and in scanning of features within a single fixation. Most of these experiments will require control or measurement of eye position and movements, redundancy of material, the amount of time the reader has to process or extract information from the material, and the type of response or indication he is to make. Through this kind of microgenetic information-processing approach, it is hoped that a better understanding of reading as a skilled performance can be achieved.